Active Transportation and Real Estate

This report, which grows out of the ULI Building Healthy Places Initiative, will explore the interconnections between human-powered transportation (i.e. walking and bicycling) and real estate. Does active transportation create real estate value? Is ?trail-oriented development the new ?TOD”? This report will explore how investments in bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure are generating economic development and increased real estate value. It will describe what innovative developers and communities are doing to support walking and biking and it will provide case studies of how bike/ped infrastructure is stimulating adjacent development. It will also explore market demand and highlight best practices and innovations in active transportation.

Rachel MacCleery is Senior Vice President at the Urban Land Institute, where she leads the organization’s Building Healthy Places Initiative, as well as its Infrastructure Initiative. Under Building Healthy Places, Rachel is spearheading ULI’s efforts to leverage the power of ULI’s global networks to shape projects and places in ways that improve the health of people and communities. Rachel’s Infrastructure Initiative portfolio encompasses a multi-faceted program of work promoting better and more sustainability infrastructure decision making. Rachel is a frequent speaker and writer on infrastructure topics. Rachel has both local and international experience, and began her career as a transportation planner for the city of Washington, D.C. Rachel consulted on infrastructure and planning projects in China while working for global infrastructure provider AECOM from 2004 to 2008. Rachel speaks Mandarin Chinese and holds master’s degrees in public affairs and urban and regional planning from the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University. Ed McMahon holds the Charles E. Fraser Chair on Sustainable Development at the Urban Land Institute in Washington, D.C. where he is nationally known as an inspiring and thought provoking speaker and leading authority on topics related to sustainable development, land conservation, smart growth, and historic preservation. As the Senior Fellow for Sustainable Development, McMahon leads ULI’s worldwide efforts to conduct research and educational activities related to environmentally sensitive development policies and practices.Before joining the Urban Land Institute in 2004, McMahon spent 14 years as the Vice President and Director of Land Use Planning for The Conservation Fund, Virginia where he helped to protect more than 5 million acres of land of historic or natural significance. He is also the co-founder and former President of Scenic America, a national non-profit organization devoted to protecting America’s scenic landscapes. Before that, he taught law and public policy at Georgetown University Law Center for 9 years, and served in the U.S. Army, both at home and abroad.